PACT program gives ex-convicts help adjusting

MAKING CONNECTIONS: A week after her parole from prison, Elizabeth Roberson, 29, center, shakes hands with Freedom Woods of the Parole and Community Team, and meets Roger Ralston of Philemon Fellowship at a PACT meeting for new parolees Thursday at the National Guard Armory in Redding.

What: Parole and Community Team brainstorming and organizational meeting.

Agenda: To discuss parolee re-entry concepts and solutions for Shasta County. Open to anyone interested in community safety and learning about re-entry ideas.

During Thursday's monthly Parole and Community Team (PACT) meeting, about 100 newly released parolees listened to introductions from some 30 resource agencies about available services, including receiving free hepatitis B vaccines, securing temporary shelter, finding employment, staying off drugs and reconnecting with children.

Elizabeth Roberson, 29, of Shasta County was among them. She was released from prison last week after serving 21 months — but had hoped to first participate in a re-entry program like the one that was recently turned down by the county.

Roberson had participated in Alcoholics Anonymous while incarcerated for her first offense, a domestic violence conviction, but her letters to substance-recovery centers from prison for help after her release went unanswered. She plans to keep attending AA and wants to become a heavy equipment operator and a mom to her two young daughters. For now, she relies on her mother for transportation, groceries and housing.

"So far, I'm doing OK," she said.

She's planned carefully to recover and avoid future incarceration, she said. "I have to. I don't want to go back."

Another parolee, Jerry Gentry, 51, attended Thursday's mandatory PACT meeting after multiple re-offenses and his latest release two days earlier.

Tattoos cover his forearms and one side of his neck, and include teardrops from one eye. He's served a total of 30 years in four prisons, for making methamphetamine, robbery and other convictions, he said.

"I had a way of life I lived. A lack of education, lack of funding, lack of housing — too many ‘lack of's,'" he said.

Returning to Shasta County and life outside prison is "scarier than hell," Gentry said.

"In there, I'm in my comfort zone," he said of prison.

The $200 parolees are given on their release doesn't go far, Gentry said. After previous releases, when his electricity or phone got turned off, robbery seemed like the only solution, he said.

Gentry plans a different outcome this time and is staying at a Redding recovery center.

"I'm here because I really need help." As far as his life of crime, he said, "I'm done." 

Reporter Kimberly Ross can be reached at 225-8339 or at kross@redding.com.